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Saturday, 3 January 2015

You'd need to be a professional political analyst to pick out the differences between PEGIDA's agenda, published in December, and the post-war caucus of German Christian Democrat party policy. The movement's logo makes quite clear where it stands; a swastika, hammer and sickle, anarchist banner and Islamic flag all tumble into a rubbish bin. The key manifesto points so hard for the liberal left to argue against include:-

The protection of Germany's Judeo-Christian culture

Tolerance toward assimilated and politically moderate Muslims

That war refugees should be welcomed in Germany

The current facilities for the housing of immigrants are inadequate and partly inhumane

Wants a fairer distribution of immigrants amongst EU nations

German immigration policy should be modelled on that of Australia and Switzerland

Foreigners should integrate into German society

Criminal immigrants and refugees should be promptly expelled

People should be free to determine their own sexuality

Two of the organisation's tenets however run contrary to mainstream German political belief;

Islamism is a misogynist and violent ideology

Constraints on political speech imposed by gender mainstreaming or political correctness should be loosened

The first and second Enlightenments in Europe led us to abandon the literalism of the Old Testament; the world was not 4,000 years old but millions, eating lobster will not earn us eternal damnation, Darwin was right and Eden's serpent is just an allegory. Islam has never experienced such an enlightenment, and the literalism of the Koran is a matter of explicit and unquestioning belief for millions, amongst them the world's most illiterate and uneducated peoples. They dwell in darkness and ignorance. The mainstream parties must be brave enough to admit this explicitly; there is a huge difference between defending someone's right to spiritual faith and condoning their belief that stoning women to death for adultery is cool. If Muslims want to live in Europe, they must wholly adopt Europe's Enlightenment - and this means dropping the literalism of the Koran. That's it. That must be the deal.

Friday, 2 January 2015

Thomas Piketty is without doubt one of our age's significant thinkers, even if his work doesn't entirely stand close scrutiny and is founded on subjective beliefs very different to mine own. But there is one thing with which I am in absolute agreement - his statement that it isn't the State's job to decide who is honourable, made by Piketty in rejecting an offer of France's Legion d'Honneur award. This blog has always adopted the convention of never recognising knighthoods or life peerages awarded by the political class to themselves unless, rarely, I also believe they deserve it. Thus on Raedwald, Catherine Ashton will always be Catherine Ashton, IPSA's Ian Kennedy will always be Ian Kennedy, David Manning (the idiot responsible for the UK's mid eastern policy in the Blair years) will forever be David Manning and so on. I really don't share their own or their peers' assessment of their worth and will not be bound by it.

Life peerages given to crooks, thieves, frauds, liars and the most dishonourable politicians have utterly devalued these feudal titles. And it's safer nowadays to assume that anyone with a knighthood is either a sportsperson, actor or crook - none of whom deserve any degree of deference or enhanced precedence. To any honourable hereditary baronets so tarnished, apologies.

The MSM will continue to be complicit in this crawly obsequiousness because its editors are always hungry to join the club, but the rest of us are not so bound.

Tuesday, 30 December 2014

How long does it take an ex-EU official to retire? I'm only asking because I thought the new bunch of unelected commissioners had been appointed months ago, yet the old stale ones are still hanging about in the wings. Senor Barolo has even ventured onto the stage to make a few bitter and snipey comments about the UK - more an indicator about the utter failure of the Portuguese economy to start breathing again than anything else, but shouldn't the Maitre D have a hook? Perhaps it's a new tradition - that we have to endure two lots of unelected officials whining at us during the transition period. Still, no sooner has the new EU 'parliament' declared their new head official to be a crooked, fraudulent tax-bludger than Greece pops up again. As Greece's economy under EU management has now shrunk almost to the size of Luxembourg's, perhaps adopting Juncker's bent tax haven approach is now a realistic prospect? More likely, the fools in the Berlaymont are likely to provoke a violent insurrection in Greece. Over Christmas, the first two Greek economic refugees I've seen popped up in the local co-op. After some initial confusion, they grasped the idea of a queue, but starbursts of consonants and hand gestures indicated they were unhappy with something. Cigarettes at £9 a packet may cause their return to Thessaly, or the winter cold. I suspect that leaving Greece is not an option for most; they will soon go through the process of a free and democratic election, the EU will then prevent a new government from delivering its electoral mandate, there will be threats and brinkmanship, and, eventually, if things don't get better for the Greeks, there will be fire. It's pointless telling the idiots in Brussels that leaving the Euro is the only sensible option for the Greeks. They don't care about the consequences for the Greeks; the idealogical imperative, the thing that a single currency represents, is far more important to them than the welfare of the people of Europe. And that thing is political federation. Hey ho.